SURVEY QUESTION TYPES

MATRIX QUESTION TYPES

Sliders are a very powerful way to cover several entities in the same question. It's useful for situations where you have a group of items that can be rated on the same scale, such as level of awareness of different brands, or level of satisfaction with different aspects of a product or service. To build this question, first specify your tested entities (subquestions). You can test up to 7; AYTM Prime members have access to as many as 10. (In some cases you may want to use the slider question type, but apply it only to the main question without adding subquestions. For example, "How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement:..." In this case, simply remove the two subquestion placeholders that were created for you by default, and set up your answer choices.)

When you're finished, move down to specify the answer choices. These will act as stops on the slider bar that will be repeated under each tested item. Use our library of commonly used and carefully structured Likert scales, or come up with your own. You can also select a Likert scale from the library and then edit it to fit your specific needs - add or remove stops, or even rewrite them. You can use up to 11 stops on the scale.

Respondents will be required to move each slider left or right when choosing the appropriate value in order to advance forward.

Important note about the order of stops on the scale: For surveys intended for the Western audience, we recommend putting more positive/larger items on the right side of the sliders, and more negative/smaller items on the left side, because it mimics the left-to-right direction of reading and the Western idea of progress proceeding rightward. To achieve left to right progression on the sliders, start with the most negative/smallest item in the beginning of the list in the editor, and end with the most positive/largest item on the bottom.

You can upload a unique image for each subquestion. Each image can be expanded to the full width of survey widget, or appear as a thumbnail and pop up on mouse rollover as a reference.

All subquestions can have the same optional skip logic destination associated with them. Conditional logic (more complex logic) is available upon request. It can be used to determine such conditions as "if at least 2 of the subquestions were answered with the top 2 boxes (extremely satisfied or very satisfied), then...."

The order in which subquestions appear for each respondent can be randomized if global randomization is ON in the survey. Each specific subquestion can be anchored to its position to make an exception from the global randomization rule. Stops on the sliders are never randomized.

Progressive Matrix is AYTM's unique solution of a very common grid question type. It's designed to organize similar questions in a matrix, choose the best settings for the job to produce the optimal experience for your respondents, and read the results on our stats page.

The noble idea behind any matrix question is to save respondents time by grouping similar questions in a table under the same header. It saves time because once they read a question, they don't have to re-read it for every item they're rating. It sounds great in theory, but it takes a significant cognitive toll on respondents. Researchers often don't realize that before long they're putting a few dozen labels and a hundred boxes in front of respondents, asking them to make a hundred decisions. Our brains are good at capturing the most important item out of a few options in front of us, but we start lagging when we're asked to consider over seven items, let alone a hundred combinations.

No wonder respondents typically hate progressive matrix questions and try to find the shortest way out! Unfortunately, this can compromise the quality of your data. Since we cherish the user experience here at AYTM, we chose to solve this problem by developing our own version of the Progressive Matrix question type.

Our Progressive Matrix solves the usual user issues by focusing respondents' attention on one column or one row at a time, a process we call 'progressive flow'. This way all their attention is focused on one entity and a manageable number of answer choices. After selections are made for this small manageable cluster of answer options, they can move on to the next column or row (depending on how you set it up) and choose among the same answer choices for the next item on the list. They can come back and make edits to the earlier items they selected while they're on the page, but this approach allows us to take full advantage of the constant headers and answer choices, and walk respondents through the answer clusters without overwhelming them.

Another set of problems we've fixed is the User Interface, or UI. Classic answer grids have uneven sizing of columns and lines, dictated by the length of their labels. Some are too long and take a few lines, stretching that row or column and creating an extra visual emphasis for it which may introduce additional bias to your data collection.

When you add Progressive Matrix question in the editor we'll start you off with three matrix sub-questions and two matrix answer options. You need to have at least two items in each list for the question type to work, but you can have up to seven. Going beyond seven might be risky, especially if you think about how your question will appear on respondents' mobile devices, but it is still possible - please reach out if you would like to discuss our options beyond DIY.

The most important thing about these two lists - the sub-questions and the answers - is that the items in the first list should be treated as the entities you're testing, and the items in the second list should be treated as the answer options, because this is how we will present the data on your stats page. In the example below, we put famous fast food restaurants in the first list and types of popular food in the second. Each restaurant on the stats page will have its own chart with breakdown of food types popularity, in addition to the aggregate stats. If we were to swap the lists here, we'd be dealing with a very puzzling series of charts titled "Burgers" with restaurants as answer options below, which isn't exactly the most useful.

IN THE SURVEY EDITOR

You will notice that the question's price will increase as you add more sub-questions. That's because it'll add steps to the survey-taking process, and each step will take extra time and consideration for respondents.

Items in each list can have illustrations, and be either randomized or anchored at their positions.

Answers can also include options such as "Other, please specify," with an optional open-ended field, and "Not Applicable" or "N/A," which will mute any other answers in the corresponding row or column.

Each list can be populated either across the top or vertically in the left column. You can toggle this setup by clicking this curved, double-arrowed icon. As ROW and COLUMN labels are switched, the icons in front of the fields indicate the new position of the labels.

Here's how this question would be presented to respondents, if we were to leave brands at the top with one for each column.

IN THE SURVEY WIDGET

And here's how they would look if each brand were on the left and had its own row.

IN THE SURVEY WIDGET (Swapped columns and rows)

When progressive flow is on, you can also set up the 'Minimum required' and 'maximum allowed' number of checkboxes. You can set them up just as you would for the regular checkbox question type, and we'll enforce the rules for you in our survey widget. If a respondent doesn't satisfy the requirements, a red error message will appear, along with a triangle pointing to the problem row or column. This error message will only appear in your preview if you're viewing your survey in Respondent Mode.

IN THE SURVEY WIDGET (Required answers)

If you need to set it up so that ONLY one checkbox can be selected, you'll have to switch to the single choice or 'radio button' mode at the bottom. This is because checkboxes are always used in market research for multiple-choice questions, so it would be very confusing for respondents to encounter checkboxes for single choice questions.

IN THE SURVEY WIDGET (Single Choice)

Please note that the Progressive flow feature is on by default, and will read either row by row from top to bottom, or column by column from left to right, depending on how your sub-questions are presented.

In rare cases you may need to launch this question type without progressive flow. We encourage you to think twice before disabling it, but you may still use this option. Please test your survey thoroughly before launching it.

ON THE STATS PAGE

The first chart is an aggregated percentage stacked columns chart. It'll present each entity as a column, in this case fast food brands, and highlight answer choices with different colors for each 'frequency of use' answer option.

Below the main chart, we'll show you individual charts for each entity tested. These charts can be shown as pie charts, columns, or bars when you change the view mode option. The view mode can easily be changed here in the upper left corner of the page.

If you're using our automated crosstabs or statistical significance testing, Progressive Matrix can be used as a banner. It can also be explored further in Personality Radar. If you are not familiar with these advanced market research and data visualization tools, please watch the corresponding videos from our tutorial library.

Star rating is a very simply way to gather ratings for several entities in the same question, such as asking respondents to rate different aspects of a product or service. To build this question, first specify your tested entities (subquestions). You can come up with up to 7, while AYTM Prime members enjoy up to 10. In some cases you may want to use star rating as the question type, but apply it directly to the main question without adding subquestions; for example, "Please rate this package design on a scale from 1 to 7 stars." In this case, simply remove the two subquestion placeholders that were created for you by default, and move on to setting up the number of stars.

You can choose the number of stars presented to respondents from the dropdown menu. You will find a list ranging from 2 to 10 stars, and then another list ranging from 2 to 6 stars where each scale contains an N/A option. The N/A option is presented to the right of the star rating widget, and is useful for the situations when the respondent has no experience or no opinion regarding the matter. By adding the N/A answer option you may achieve a cleaner data set.

Respondents will be required to assign a star rating for each subquestion by clicking on the corresponding number of stars, or on the N/A button, in order to advance.

The main question and each subquestion can have a unique image associated with it. Each image can be expanded to the full width of the survey widget, or appear as a thumbnail and pop up on mouse rollover as a reference.

The question field has a limited number of characters: 120 for the main question, 90 for each subquestion. AYTM Prime members can use up to 240 characters for the main question.

All subquestions can have the same optional skip logic destination associated with them. Conditional logic is available upon request, and allows you to determine such conditions as "If at least 2 of the subquestions were answered with the top 2 boxes (6 or 7 stars), then...."

The order in which subquestions appear for each respondent can be randomized if global randomization is ON in the survey. Each specific subquestion can be anchored to its position to make an exception from the global randomization rule.

Smiley ratings are the simplest way for respondents to communicate their basic level of happiness with each of the tested items. You can gather attitude ratings for several entities in the same question. Similar to the star rating and sliders, it's useful for situations when you have a group of items that can be rated together, such as asking respondents to indicate their happiness with different aspects of a product or service. To build this question, first specify your tested entities (subquestions). You can come up with up to 7; AYTM Prime members enjoy up to 10.

In some cases you may want to use smiley ratings, but apply them directly to the main question without adding subquestions, for example, "Please tell us how happy or unhappy you are with this service." In this case, simply remove the two subquestion placeholders that were created for you by default, and move on to setting up the emoticons.

From the dropdown menu you can choose 2 or 3 emoticons, featuring an indifferent face in addition to the happy and unhappy ones.

Respondents will be required to choose a smiley face for each subquestion by clicking on it in order to advance.

The main question and each subquestion can have a unique image associated with it. Each image can be expanded to the full width of the survey widget, or appear as a thumbnail and pop up on mouse rollover as a reference.

The question field has a limited number of characters: 120 for questions, 90 for subquestions. AYTM Prime members can use up to 240 characters for the question field.

All subquestions can have the same optional skip logic destination associated with them. Conditional logic is available upon request, and allows you to determine such conditions as "If at least 2 of the subquestions were answered with the happy face, then…."

The order in which subquestions appear for each respondent can be randomized if global randomization is ON in the survey. Each specific subquestion can be anchored to its position to make an exception from the global randomization rule.